The New Orleans Voodoo Handbook by Kenaz Filan

Author:Kenaz Filan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Tags: Spirituality/Shamanism
ISBN: 9781594777981
Publisher: Destiny Books
Published: 2011-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

St. Marron

Oh, St. Marron, I seek your aid in my hour of need. As you were able to break your chains and find your freedom, help me to avoid the snares of those who would capture me. In my hour of darkness and fear I call upon you. Pray for me that I may go about my business untroubled and that my enemies may be caught up in their own pitfalls.

Those slaves who escaped from captivity often made their way to the cypress swamps. There they established colonies of maroons (from the Spanish cimarrón, or fugitive) or, in French, marrons. Joining forces with other escaped slaves and indentured servants, outlaws, pirates, and Indians fleeing colonial genocide, they created tight-knit communities protected by their inaccessibility.

Some sought a settled existence in which they could build farms and raise their families in freedom. Others supported themselves by raids on outlying farms. Maneuvering through the canebrakes and sloughs of the wild regions between plantations and towns, they established trade and smuggling networks with slaves and free persons of color. Scorned by the white establishment as savages and criminals, many became folk heroes to the black population.

The most famous of these marron bandits was an escaped slave named Squier. Squier was one of Congo Square’s most brilliant dancers, known especially for his performance of the bamboula. His master, General William de Buys, had given him a gun and encouraged him to hunt on his own. Squier became not only a talented hunter but an expert marksman who taught himself how to shoot with both hands because of a premonition that he might one day lose his arm.

Squier’s time in the wilderness gave him a taste of freedom. He tried to escape several times but each time was caught by slave hunters and returned to de Buys. In 1834 he was shot by patrollers; his injured right arm became infected and was ultimately amputated. As soon as his wound healed, Squier made yet another escape. This time he was able to make it to the swamps, where he joined a marron community and became infamous as the bandit Bras Coupé (Cut Arm).

For several years Bras Coupé and his marrons led a campaign of robbery and pillage against the settlers. The whites considered him the most dangerous bandit in the Louisiana swamps, spreading tales of his atrocities in whispers and offering ever-increasing rewards for his capture. But the slaves and free blacks told very different stories. Among them, Bras Coupé’s exploits became legendary. Some claimed that he had superhuman powers and that he was immune to fire and bullets.

On July 18, 1837, Bras Coupé’s luck ran out when he was killed by a Spanish fisherman named Francisco Garcia. Garcia claimed that he had been attacked while at work on his boat. Garcia grabbed an iron bar and beat the escaped slave to death in self-defense. (Skeptics suggested that Garcia was actually one of Coupé’s henchmen and murdered him in his sleep for the bounty.) Whatever the circumstances

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